51黑料

ST. LOUIS 鈥� The most important sentence Thomas Abt spoke at the 51黑料 Regional Crime Summit on Wednesday was also the one most likely to make a lot of tough-on-crime folks upset.

鈥淭here is no city that has had success by arresting its way out of the problem,鈥� Abt said.

The alternative is also true: Anti-violence, anti-poverty and social justice programs don鈥檛 work by themselves.

鈥淭he research says you must have both,鈥� Abt told a packed auditorium of political and civic leaders, police chiefs and medical professionals on the Washington University Medical Center campus.

The crowd included 51黑料 Mayor Tishaura O. Jones, who originally conceived of the crime summit, and St. Charles County Executive Steve Ehlmann. Police Chief Troy Doyle from Ferguson was there, along with law enforcement officials from both sides of the Mississippi River. There were health care professionals, such as Dr. LJ Punch; and defense attorneys, such as James Wyrsch.

The starting point of the summit, organized by the , was easy: 51黑料 has a homicide problem. But how to solve it? That鈥檚 the $60,000 question.

Actually, make that a $6 billion question. Abt says that鈥檚 potentially how much revenue 51黑料鈥� homicide rate costs the region annually in direct costs, like hospital and first-responder resources, and in indirect costs, like lost job revenue.

Abt is the author of He is also the founding director of the nonprofit , where he collaborates with cities on how to reduce homicides.

51黑料 historically has one the highest homicide rates in the country, and Abt was here for a tryout of sorts 鈥� a job interview to see what he can do for us. How that interview went is an open question.

Jim Wild, executive director of East-West Gateway, said the community leaders reached a 鈥渃onsensus鈥� to invite Abt to return so he can organize a longer crime summit and help develop a crime plan.

The organizers of the event kicked the media out after the first couple of speakers, though, so reporters weren鈥檛 there to watch that consensus be reached. We weren鈥檛 there to listen to elected officials share their thoughts on how to reduce violence, or how open they are to regional cooperation on a gun violence problem that is most prominent in some city neighborhoods.

It鈥檚 a part of the story of 51黑料 that gets repeated over and over again. Remember Better Together, the failed merger of the city and county that was conceived in part to deal with the homicide problem? It collapsed by producing its so-called solutions in secret and then foisting them on an unsuspecting public.

But the need to cooperate regionally underlies the discussion of violence. And, Abt suggests, it is a key to reducing homicides in the region long-term.

鈥淚t鈥檚 complicated work that is very partnership intense,鈥� he says.

A good example is a homicide-reducing strategy that Abt says has had the most success: focused deterrence. The concept is that police officers, prosecutors and social service agencies work hand-in-hand to identify the key drivers of gun violence in a community. Most homicides in a city are committed by a small percentage of folks, and often those people are known to law enforcement. Under the focused deterrence model, public officials try to work with those folks to keep them out of prison, try to address the trauma that leads to violence and stop homicides before they happen.

It takes cops and social workers and nurses and prosecutors working together to treat a public health crisis. In 51黑料, it also will take agencies cooperating across city and county boundaries.

The day before Abt came to 51黑料, we saw first-hand how difficult that process can be, with 51黑料 County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell trying to quietly help the transition in the city of 51黑料 Circuit Attorney鈥檚 Office as Kim Gardner prepared to resign. But a county councilman questioned whether county taxpayers should be paying for such a thing, and the transition collapsed anyway as Gardner left before a deal could be completed.

Such is life in 51黑料, where our fragmentation is a daily obstacle to progress.

Focused deterrence isn鈥檛 a panacea, Abt says, but it has worked in multiple cities to reduce homicides.

鈥淚t takes a lifetime of trauma to become a shooter,鈥� Abt told the crime summit crowd.

Reversing that process won鈥檛 happen overnight, and it isn鈥檛 sustainable without serious cooperation from government and civic leaders over a long period of time.

Jones, for one, is glad regional leaders are focused on crime in 51黑料. She hopes the next step is to better involve residents of the city sharing their views on how to tackle the homicide problem.

鈥淭rust,鈥� Jones said after the summit, 鈥渙nly moves at the speed of our community being involved in the solution.鈥�